Me without Makeup

These past two weeks my gorgeous clients (those on a particular coaching program) and I have been da da daaaaaaaa…Facing our faces and learning to love what we see sans makeup. Without a drop of under eye concealer without a drop of anything, just looking at ourselves in broad daylight and in doing so something magical happened. We found ourselves releasing  shame – the shame of looking spotty, ugly, double chinny, just plain fat, old, wrinkly, and releasing the shame side ordering of really, really bad hair.

You know how it is – you get ready to go out – you check yourself in the mirror – and yup – you’re having a bad hair day, you don’t like what you’re wearing but you don’t have time to change.  So you slink out and hope nobody you know see’s you – and there it is.  S-h-a-m-e.  Like an un-cool rucksack you get to carry until you can get back to the safety of your own home.

And what was interesting to me is that I thought I had already dealt with all of this – I mean I teach it don’t I? I already rocked my beauty thank you very much.  This kind of talk is for women who are insecure – and that’s not me.  I’m not a slave to makeup – never have been and I certainly don’t buy into all those photo-shopped pics in magazines because I’ve seen the industry from the other side and I know how it works.

Actually talking of pictures – what do you do with a photo you don’t like of yourself?  Do you care that it sits on your friends phone or do you hit delete immediately? (Phew it’s gone!)  Or do you skip these pics real quick when you scroll through looking for something else…quietly embarrassed – “that’s sooooo not how I look.”  Ever un-tagged yourself on Facebook photo’s so no-one will know for sure that that’s you there?

Once a photo’s been taken do you immediately grab your friends phone with a “let me look at that” to see how you look and if you are not happy – “can you take another one?”

Know what we did this week instead?

We reversed it by facing it!

We sent the photos that we are most ashamed of to the group and sent photo’s that we feel are beautiful to the group.

With makeup, without makeup, with great hear, with very dodgy 1970’s hair  – each day for 7 days and each time telling each other what is particularly beautiful about our faces this time.

It dawned on me this week that when you actually look at a photo of yourself with makeup or without you are just as beautiful.  Yes really.  What it takes to realise this is a willingness to fall in love with your bad hair, yellow teeth, fatness, thinness…all of that…Because actually you are quite beautiful with all of this.  Some days you show more of these than others, like when you get your period.  And yet..and yet…you are still beautiful.

I gotta say, makeup doesn’t really change how we look that much. Sorry. We might think so, but when you truly post up a bad pic and a good pic…there really isn’t much in it.  We just think there is and put an awful lot of energy into making ourselves look a certain way.

When we DECIDE we are beautiful, we just are.  And the shame melts away.  Because there isn’t room for both. Because wearing biggles 1980’s glasses, having spots, dark circles under your eyes, puffy eyes, and wrinkles is actually beautiful.

The difference between the photographs with and without makeup is actually very small to everyone else looking at it, but huge to you.
This week has been very cathartic – we’ve realised that we are beautiful just the way we are and with that comes absolute freedom to pop down to the shop, to sashay into the bathroom without makeup and with a flick of the hair still FLIRT with the plumber. In acceptance comes freedom.

I dare you to pluck a photo out from the past and really look at it – was it really so bad?  You might surprise yourself and realise – blimey! “I looked a lot better than I thought”  Well the same applies to you right NOW looking at the screen with that beautiful face of yours.

Yes you.

Smile.

YOU.ARE.BEAUTIFUL.NOW.

This is me below taking a “selfie” with my i-phone in my office.  I’d been writing all day, my greasy hair pulled back, no makeup on, needing my roots done and felt beautiful and luminous just as I am.

What if you took a “selfie” (holding your mobile phone and taking a pic of yourself) every day for the next 7 days and decided that in each pic you are beautiful?  Could you do it?

Through this I’ve learned to walk out the door without makeup on – it’s so freeing.  I’ve taken my appreciation of my beauty to the next level.

The more you fall in love with yourself the less power your looks will have over you. So good day, bad day….you are always beautiful – so what if you and I right now,  TODAY sashayed down that corridor, flicked our hair and decided unconditionally that we are beautiful now?

Everyone wins when you decide you are beautiful just the way you are. Everyone.

I’m curious – could you pop to the corner shop without makeup on?  Let me know in the comments below!